Brentwood Girls
In my mind, I buried the Lady Bruins' chances of winning the team title after sectionals. The Bruins path to victory relied heavily on maximizing scoring in the limited events they were going to qualify in and I didn't entirely see how the Bruins could match HVA without winning multiple events. Prior to Thursday, these were the numbers I took into consideration:
| Brentwood | HVA | |
| Scoring Opportunities | 14 | 17 |
| Events Qualified | 11 | 13 |
After Thursday, the scoring numbers looked like this:
| Brentwood | HVA | |
| Event Wins | 4 | 1 |
| Events with Multiple Scorers | 1 | 2 |
| Total Events Scored | 9 | 10 |
Brentwood finished with 73 while HVA scored 66. It goes without saying, they proved me wrong. What I probably should've taken into account is Brentwood won a State Cross Country Title in the fall and it was foolish of me to count them out of being able to backfill their relay legs and secure 10 points in the 4x8 and the 4x4 with that depth in consideration. There wasn't a single "distance" event they did not score in which is exactly what you would expect. They won the 4x8, Banovac went 3rd in the 800, and Vanderkolk went 5th and 5th in the mile and two mile. They sprinkled in just enough points over the course of the events that after Hollan Powers won the Pentathlon, Pole Vault, and secured another 14 points between the Long and Triple they gave themselves a shot to win the meet when the 4x400m rolled around.
Brentwood runs TN #1 3:58.58 to secure a team championship.
There are a few ways the Hawks could've distanced themselves from the Bruins by this time however. As stated in the lead up to this meet, HVA had three girls who could long jump 18 feet. Only one did in Rockvale. Their vaulter only going 9 feet when she was capable of going 10 was another missed opportunity. But while HVA wasn't able capitalize on their depth of qualifiers the day of the meet, some decisions that preceded the qualifying made by Coach Fedoris turned out to be the most crucial.
Coach Fedoris elaborates on scrapping a top 4x100 and hurdle race in lieu of bigger points in other events.
Congratulations to the Lady Bruins. Now onto the boy's competition.